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British Airways Flight 5390
- sah55 6y agoNational Geographic reconstruction of the pilot hanging from the window: https://commonplacefacts.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tim-lancaster02.jpg https://commonplacefacts.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tim-lan...
- sho_hn 6y agoAccording to Wikipedia, he went back to work after less than five months.
- ArnoVW 6y agoAircrash investigation épisode https://youtu.be/bqRWupOv8DQ https://youtu.be/bqRWupOv8DQ
- twen_ty 6y ago"The previous windscreen had also been fitted using incorrect bolts, which were replaced by the shift maintenance manager on a like-for-like basis without reference to maintenance documentation" Blind copy pasting in realworld.
- netsharc 6y agoWas he using Stackoverflow?
- ddalex 6y agoMore like Window Overflow, amirite?
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoThe mechanic simply enabled the Sliding Window algorithm.
- tetris11 6y agoI am amazed it was attached from the outside, and not the inside
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoMaybe the force of the wind/airstream as the plane is flying fast is a bigger factor than the force of the overpressure inside?
- KMag 6y agoIt avoids having to avoid banging the window on sensitive equipment in the cockpit when installing or removing the window. After this incident, they don't design windows like that any more.
- jsnell 6y agoIf the wrong bolts were the problem, I wonder why the previous windscreen did not come off.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 29083011397778 6y agoTo ensure pressurization, often compounds are used to help seal the aircraft. PRC is one that I've used previously for this. Perhaps something similar had been used to seal the cockpit (thus helping hold the bolts in place), but there hadn't been time to re-apply (as it takes ~24 hours to completely set).
- NextHendrix 6y agoThe air crash investigation episode for this incident is insane. The entire episode doesn't hint at whether the guy survived and then right at the end there's suddenly an interview room and the bloke walks in. Having not heard about the incident previously this bowled me over completely. That's one hell of a story for the grandkids.
- jimbob45 6y ago> By this time Lancaster had shifted several inches farther outside and his head was repeatedly striking the side of the fuselage. The crew believed him to be dead, but Atchison told the others to continue holding onto him, out of fear that letting go of him might cause him to strike the left wing, engine, or horizontal stabiliser, potentially damaging it. Read the article but this is the bit I don’t want anyone to miss.
- rkagerer 6y agoInvestigators found that when the windscreen was installed 27 hours before the flight, 84 of the bolts used were 0.026 inches (0.66 mm) too small in diameter (British Standards A211-8C vs A211-8D, which are #8-32 vs #10-32 by the Unified Thread Standard) and the remaining six were A211-7D, which is the correct diameter but 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) too short (0.7 inch vs. 0.8 inch).
- redis_mlc 6y agoI'd be interested to know if there was a maintenance test flight before carrying revenue passengers.
- fireattack 6y agoOff-topic, but I am always wondering why (English and lot of other languages) Wikipedia don't include "accident" or similar word in the title for these articles. On the contrary, Japanese and Chinese versions do have it (and sounds more natural as a native speaker).
- dan1234 6y ago(In the U.K. at least) Accident seems to have fallen out of favour as calling something an accident would suggest there’s no blame, which is not normally the case (definitely not in the case). As an example, car crashes are now referred to as RTIs (road traffic incident), where they were RTAs when I was young.
- donaltroddyn 6y agoInteresting. In Ireland, they're referred to as RTCs (collisions), although still referred to as accidents in law. Never come across RTI before.
- agurk 6y agoI've never understood this logic as typical usage of the word accident means something wasn't _deliberately_ caused, not that no-one was at fault. I'm sure you could find some collisions that were caused deliberately (insurance fraud for example) but I'd be surprised they occurred so frequently to be worth changing the word.
- kqr 6y agoInteresting. My favourite safety expert, Nancy Leveson, uses "incident" to refer to conditions that could easily lead to accident. E.g. driving on the wrong side of a road is an incident. Doing it and colliding with someone is an accident.
- howlgarnish 6y agoThe boring answer is that because the WikiProject Aviation style guide says so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation/Aviation_accident_task_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation... But this also avoids pointless wrangling over whether each accident should be called an accident, incident, disaster, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. FWIW, the Japanese/Chinese 事件 literally translates as "incident", which can be controversial in itself. For example, the Nanking Massacre is typically called the "Nanking Incident" (南京事件) in Japanese.
- Corinthian 6y agoTrue story: My Dad flew with BA and once a year (until the age of 25), I could get an annual free flight with him. For my last free trip we went to Hong Kong and Tim Lancaster was piloting, so I got to meet him - enjoyably, everyone affectionately knew him as 'Tim out the window'. He gave me a harrowing account of the whole experience, worst of all was trying to tilt his head backwards so he could breathe. Also interestingly, as we were approaching to land in HK, we suddenly started gaining altitude again and ended up doing a lap round the island because, "The runway was busy". Tim later confessed to me that he'd hit the wrong button and withdrew the approach flaps. They also regaled me with stories of the old HK landing strip that involved flying so low through the city, you could see into people's rooms, shortly before banking hard to the right when you saw a giant chequer board on the side of a mountain, and landing. I then spend a week going out every night in Hong Kong city with several plane loads of Airline Stewardesses. That's another story, but suffice to say, I was very lucky 24 year old boy.
- tim44 6y agoWell timmed.
- bhrgunatha 6y ago> They also regaled me with stories of the old HK landing strip that involved flying so low through the city, you could see into people's rooms I flew in that way several times. It was always a treat. There was also the opposite point of view, being on the streets. You'd suddenly see a very, very low aircraft appear briefly with a deafening roar from above the buildings. There was very little noise build up as a warning.
- Corinthian 6y agoI think I remember being told that pilots needed ten years flying experience before they were even allowed to attempt this landing. That can't be a pleasant first-attempt at all. I can imagine it must have been an incredible site from the ground. I wonder if that landing is in the new Microsoft Flight Simulator?
- usr1106 6y agoThese were the days when the British had their own screws (from a continental European perspective). People buying a Landrover on the continent also needed to buy a set of suitable wrenches. I guess the same holds for America. Not sure whether American screws would be the same as British ones or whether they would differ like the volume of a gallon. With global manufacturing these days, Japanese cars everywhere, German cars in America, how many screw standards are still in use? When did it change, if it did?
- implements 6y agoMy father’s toolkit had metric, AF and Whitworth spanners.
- usr1106 6y agoThanks, that gives the right search term https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standard_Whitworth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standard_Whitworth
- usr1106 6y agoIn airplane terms, does a Boeing, an Airbus, a Fokker and a BAe/Avro all use the same screws?
- usr1106 6y agoNot an answer to the question, but they are all likely to use different screws than what we home mechanics are used to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_metric_screw_thread https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_metric_screw_thread > Superfine pitch metric threads are [...] commonly used in the aviation manufacturing industry.
- t0mas88 6y agoAirplanes operated for passenger transport are on a very controlled maintenance program. Almost all parts are numbered and tracked, including their age, flight hours and cycles (basically number of flights). You cannot replace even a bolt with another that isn't according to the same manufacturer spec and tracked in the same manner. So some screws could be the same spec, but in general you don't just pick one out of a bucket and screw it in.
- Reason077 6y agoIt’s not mentioned in the article, but most of the drama would have been avoided here if the pilot had been wearing his seat belt.
- kgermino 6y agoIIRC he was wearing a seatbelt, just loosened a bit. That seems forgivable given they were flying at altitude
- marban 6y agohttps://i.imgur.com/aGaF56y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/aGaF56y.jpg
- andruby 6y agoAre those real pictures? Source?
- marban 6y agoOf course not. NatGeo Air Crash Investigation series
- stareatgoats 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25091151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25091151
- haunter 6y agoDid he have seatbelts on? Searched the investigation report but there is no mention of that.
- t0mas88 6y agoHe had his lap belt on but loosened a bit, shoulder harness was off (which is normal for flight above 10.000ft)
- ISL 6y agoFor those not familiar, the interchangeability of 8-32 screws where 10-32 screws should go makes this sort of error very easy to do. They go in right and can feel right as they come tight. The only real clue can be a rattly feel in the hole. Often, switching like-for-like is a great way to work -- it can often be more reliable than documentation itself. The best way around this problem would seem to be installing the window from the inside (relying on the airframe instead of the fasteners), but I bet there was a defensible reason for that choice, too. A moral of the story could be that if documentation and reality don't match on a safety-critical part, one must simply stop operations until the question is resolved.
- kumarvvr 6y agoWhy would a window be attached from the outside? Is it not prudent to fit the window from the inside? Or evwn better, have a groove or slot system so that the window can be removed or replaced with only sideays forces.
- benhurmarcel 6y agoIt's cheaper than a groove, and easier to assemble than from the inside.
- SeeManDo 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZlP2jrcGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZlP2jrcGo ha ha
- Mister_Snuggles 6y agoI remember watching the Mayday[0] episode about this. I'm always amazed at the depth that these investigations go into. Some other recommended episodes, in no particular order: * The Gimli Glider * Hudson River Runway - this one also got turned into a Hollywood movie, which I enjoyed, but I prefer the less-dramatized version presented by Mayday. * Grand Canyon Disaster - mainly due to the age of this accident and the changes that stemmed from it. * Nowhere to Land - the pilot of this flight has an incredible story. * I'm the Problem - this wasn't a technical problem, this was a human problem. * Falling from the Sky There are so many incredible episodes. I don't have cable anymore and this is one of the few things I miss. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_(Canadian_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_(Canadian_TV_series)
- petercooper 6y agoIf aviation accident stories interest you and you like podcasts, https://www.planecrashpod.com/ https://www.planecrashpod.com/ is well worth listening to. I've been a patron for some time. They cover stories pretty in-depth and sometimes have a pilot or other crew member on to talk about what happened.
- shwoopdiwoop 6y agoI always find it fascinating to browse AV Herald. I never thought that there would be this many aircraft incidents, like engine failures mid flight or other serious events. Thinking of the overall amount of flights that take place every day I guess it makes sense though, statistically speaking. http://avherald.com/ http://avherald.com/
- waffl 6y agoI learned about this from the book "Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors" by Matt Parker. It was interesting in the context of describing this concept of 'Swiss Cheese Model' where if just the right holes line up, something disastrous like this can happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model Apart from the bolt length, the process of finding and matching bolts was broken, and the windshield, if fitted from the inside (plug type) would not have blown outward. It's also a reminder of how we're engineering a world where human intuition alone cannot resolve these minute differences. It's a particularly scary thing in these high risk/high responsibility situations that there aren't endless fail-safes in place (think air max, challenger etc) Quote from the book: "If humans are going to continue to engineer things beyond what we can perceive, then we need to also use the same intelligence to build systems that allow them to be used and maintained by actual humans. Or, to put it another way, if the bolts are too similar to tell apart, write the product number on them."